Experimental Analysis of Kinematic Network-Based GPS Positioning Technique for River Bathymetric Survey

Abstract

This paper deals with performance assessment of the kinematic network-based GPS positioning technique with a view to using it for ellipsoidally referenced bathymetric surveys. To this end, two field trials were carried out on a land vehicle and a surveying vessel. Single-frequency GPS data acquired from these tests were processed by an in-house software which equips the network modeling algorithm with instantaneous ambiguity resolution procedure. The results reveals that ambiguity success rate based on the network model is mostly higher than 99.0%, which is superior to that of the single-baseline model. In addition, achievable accuracy of the technique was accessed at <TEX>${\pm}1.6cm$</TEX> and 2.7 cm with 95% confidence level in horizontal and vertical component respectively. From bathymetric survey at the West Nakdong River in Busan, Korea, 3-D coordinates of 2,011 points on its bed were computed by using GPS-derived coordinates, attitude, measured depth and geoid undulation. Note that their vertical coordinates are aligned to the geoid, the so-called orthometric height which is widely adopted in river engineering. Bathymetry was constructed by interpolating the coordinate set, and some discussion on its benefit was given at the end.